Symposium 2014 – Heritage

Since the first Hamburg symposium THE ART OF MUSIC EDUCATION in January 2008, music education has grown enormously in importance and has experienced continuous professionalization throughout the world. Today every sincere music institution is dedicated to music education and we are therefore proud to further these developments with the fourth symposium in January 2014. This time our attention is focused on digital media and the opportunities and challenges it presents for music education. Among other things we will take a closer look at to what extend the roots and socio-cultural background of classical music influence our educational and appreciation efforts.

Concert institutions are mediators: they are places for meeting, places for performing, they are in a sense communicators and as such they stand between artistic and creative content and society. The symposium takes this assessment as a starting point and targets three main questions: The first question centres on the observation that many education projects react to a heterogeneous, multi-cultural society. This in turn leads to a contemporary perspective that hardly allows an in-depth exposure to and appreciation of cultural heritage. How can music education go beyond studying the opus itself so that a string quartet, for instance, can be seen and understood not only as a music genre but also as the representation of a societal idea? What meaningful connections can be made by music education between a national cultural heritage – such as folk music – an so-called classical music?

The second question arises from the fact that the age of media has long reached music education and thus asks how music education reacts to the new technologies and aesthetics? Where are worthwhile fields for exchanges – especially in reference to content sharing? Throughout the symposium about ten organisations will be exhibiting digital media products that promote and facilitate music education.

The third question looks at the present day music scene where access to cultural content is not only made possible through producers but also through other players of the music market such as labels, promoters, publishers, agents or local promoters. So far, music education has not reached out or included them, despite the fact that they are in the same boat since only informed, enthusiastic and zealous listeners can turn into customers. Which possibilities are there for working together? How can producers, agencies and music educators benefit from each other?

3.30 p.m. | Opening

• Christoph Lieben-Seutter, General and Artistic Director Elbphilharmonie and Laeiszhalle, ECHO President
• Klaus Wehmeier, Vice Chairman, Körber Foundation
• Barbara Kisseler, Senator of Culture of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg
• Experience Music! with Quatuor Voce

5.00 p.m. | Keynotes and discussions

• Navid Kermani, writer and orientalist, and Kent Nagano, Music Director Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, on the role and importance of cultural heritage in the present day
• Panel discussion, moderated by Holger Noltze

7.00 p.m. | Get together

8.30 p.m. | Discussion and concert

• Experience Music! with Sven Helbig & Fauré Quartett

9.00 a.m. | “Every future needs a past – practical approaches in dealing with our cultural heritage”

• Presentations: Cité de la musique, Paris and Kathryn Tickell, Northumbria/England
• Panel discussion with Marie-Hélène Serra, Kathryn Tickell, Matthias Schorn, Vienna, and Maria Vlachou, Lisbon
• Culture Café

1.00 p.m. | Lunch

2.00 p.m. | “From App to Xing – Media in music education”

• Presentations: To include Het Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Philharmonia Orchestra, Beethovenfest Bonn, and Dortmunder Philharmoniker
• Culture Café

5.30 p.m. | Exchange and discussion with media exhibitors

8.00 p.m. | Reception

9.30 a.m. | “Are we all in the same boat? Education and the music market”

• Presentations: Universal Edition and N.N.
• Panel discussion with Martin Hoffmann, Berliner Philharmoniker, Lukas Barwinski, Lang Lang International Music Foundation, and Karsten Witt, karsten witt musik management

12.30 p.m.| Lunch and closing of the symposium